Martin Gardner was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literature – especially the writings of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and G. K. Chesterton. He was a leading authority on Lewis Carroll; The Annotated Alice, which incorporated the text of Carroll's two Alice books, was his most successful work and sold over a million copies. He had a lifelong interest in magic and illusion and in 1999, MAGIC magazine named him as one of the "100 Most Influential Magicians of the Twentieth Century". He was considered the doyen of American puzzlers. He was a prolific and versatile author, publishing more than 100 books.
Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research- and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited to being an endeavor for amateurs, many topics in this field require no knowledge of advanced mathematics. Recreational mathematics involves mathematical puzzles and games, often appealing to children and untrained adults and inspiring their further study of the subject.
Andrew Collins is an English writer and broadcaster. He is the creator and writer of the Radio 4 sitcom Mr Blue Sky. His TV writing work includes EastEnders and the sitcoms Grass and Not Going Out. Collins has also worked as a music, television and film critic.
Boing Boing is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice won the Bloggies for Weblog of the Year, in 2004 and 2005. The editors are Mark Frauenfelder, David Pescovitz, Carla Sinclair, and Rob Beschizza, and the publisher is Jason Weisberger.
Timothy Douglas Harford is an English economic journalist who lives in Oxford. Harford is the author of four economics books and writes his long-running Financial Times column, The Undercover Economist, syndicated in Slate magazine, which explores the economic ideas behind everyday experiences. His column in the Financial Times, Since You Asked, ran between 2011 and 2014 and offered a sceptical look at the news of the week.
Desmond MacHale is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at University College Cork, Ireland. He is an author and speaker on several subjects, including George Boole, lateral thinking puzzles, and humour. He has published over 80 books, some of which have been translated into languages including Danish, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, German, Korean, and Japanese.
Alan Connor is a British writer, journalist and television presenter. First seen on Channel 4's youth entertainment programme The Word in 1995, he later appeared on The Big Breakfast and BBC Radio Five Live and was a BBC News correspondent, appearing on BBC News 24 and The Daily Politics.
Janet Varney is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer. She is known for voicing the character of Korra in the Nickelodeon animated television series The Legend of Korra, co-starring as Sheriff Evie Barret in the television series Stan Against Evil, and a recurring role as Becca Barbara in You're the Worst.
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (SGU) is an American weekly skeptical podcast hosted by Steven Novella, MD, along with a panel of contributors. The official podcast of the New England Skeptical Society, it was named to evoke The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The show features discussions of recent scientific developments in layman's terms, and interviews authors, people in the area of science, and other famous skeptics. The SGU podcast includes discussions of myths, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, the paranormal, and other forms of superstition, from the point of view of scientific skepticism.
Red Eye, also known as Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld from 2007 to 2015 and Red Eye w/ Tom Shillue from 2015 to 2017, was an American late-night/early-morning satirical talk show on Fox News, which aired at 3:00 a.m. ET Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 p.m. Saturday, and 2:00 a.m. Sunday. The show featured panelists and guests discussing the latest news in politics, pop culture, entertainment, business, sports, and religion.
StarShipSofa is a science fiction audio magazine and podcast from the United Kingdom hosted by Tony C. Smith. It publishes audio short fiction, commentary, essays, and anthologies of transcribed material. StarShipSofa was the first ever podcast to be both nominated for and to win a Hugo Award for Best Fanzine. It was also nominated for Best Fan Podcast in the 2007 Parsec Awards. StarShipSofa is free directly from the web site and is available for subscription and automatic download through iTunes.
Walking the Room was a comedy podcast hosted by American comedians Greg Behrendt and Dave Anthony. The free, hour-long weekly show debuted via web and iTunes on May 24, 2010, and was recorded in Behrendt's closet in Los Angeles, California. Each episode was broken into three segments that typically involve rants and banter between the hosts, but occasional guests have included Patton Oswalt, Karen Kilgariff, Brian Posehn, Jimmy Pardo, Jonah Ray, Brendon Walsh, Jen Kirkman and TOFOP hosts Wil Anderson and Charlie Clausen. Anthony produced and edited the show. Behrendt originally created the opening theme, “Estoy Podcuddle,” under the name HoboTang, and most of the music played on the show is performed by his band, The Reigning Monarchs. The podcast ceased regular production in October 2014 following an extended hiatus. In April 2015, a final episode was recorded from the Melbourne Comedy Festival and released a few days later.
An alphamagic square is a magic square that remains magic when its numbers are replaced by the number of letters occurring in the name of each number. Hence 3 would be replaced by 5, the number of letters in "three". Since different languages will have a different number of letters for the spelling of the same number, alphamagic squares are language-dependent. The term alphamagic was coined by Lee Sallows in 1986.
Judge John Hodgman is a weekly, comedic court show podcast hosted by John Hodgman and Jesse Thorn. The show is distributed online by Maximum Fun.
The Good Thinking Society is a nonprofit organisation promoting scientific scepticism established by Simon Singh in September 2012.
Oh No, Ross and Carrie! is an investigative journalism podcast produced in Los Angeles and distributed by the Maximum Fun network. The hosts personally investigate claims about spirituality, fringe science, religion, and the paranormal, then discuss their findings on the show. The motto of the podcast is "We show up so you don't have to."
Wizard Wars is a reality competition show in which teams of magicians create and perform original magic routines before a live studio audience. Their acts are judged on creativity, deception, and showmanship. Vegas headliners Penn & Teller head up the judging panel, alongside magic critic Christen Gerhart and World Champion of Magic Jason Latimer. Wizard Wars also features four "home team" magicians—the "Wizards"—who return every week to take on new teams of "challengers." Wizards include street magician Justin Flom, stage illusionist David Shimshi, mentalist Angela Funovits, and con man Gregory Wilson. The series premiered August 19, 2014
Brilliant.org is an American for-profit company and associated community that features 70+ guided courses across the site. It operates via a freemium business model.
Hamid Naderi Yeganeh is an Iranian mathematical artist and digital artist. He is known for using mathematical formulas to create drawings of real-life objects, intricate and symmetrical illustrations, animations, fractals and tessellations. Naderi Yeganeh uses mathematics as the main tool to create artworks. Therefore, his artworks can be totally described by mathematical concepts. Mathematical concepts he uses in his work include trigonometric functions, exponential function, Fibonacci sequence, sawtooth wave, etc.
Bird, also known as A Bird in Flight refers to bird-like mathematical artworks that are introduced by mathematical equations. A group of these figures are created by combing through tens of thousands of computer-generated images. They are usually defined by trigonometric functions. An example of A Bird in Flight is made up of 500 segments defined in a Cartesian plane where for each the endpoints of the -th line segment are:
